-30- (The Wire)
"-30-" | |
---|---|
The Wire episode | |
Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 10 |
Directed by | Clark Johnson |
Story by |
|
Teleplay by | David Simon |
Featured music | "Way Down in the Hole" by The Blind Boys of Alabama |
Original air date | March 9, 2008 |
Running time | 93 minutes |
"-30-" is the
Plot
Tommy Carcetti and his staff learn that the "serial killer" was a hoax. McNulty and Freamon, unaware that their scheme has been exposed, discover that Gary DiPasquale has leaked courthouse documents to Levy. When Freamon gives Pearlman the identity of the mole, she reveals her knowledge of the detectives' duplicity.
Levy goes through the Stanfield arrest warrants and realizes that the police used an illegal wiretap to decipher the code beforehand. McNulty,
Pearlman and Bond are told by Steintorf to quietly settle the Stanfield case out of court to keep the illegal wiretaps from being brought to light. Pearlman meets with Levy and uses a taped conversation given to her by Freamon to force him to settle. McNulty is confronted by Daniels and Rawls, who order him to quickly catch the copycat so that the press will assume he's the original killer.
McNulty identifies a mentally ill homeless man as the killer and the
McNulty locates
The montage ends with rapid cuts of various scenes from the show and people of Baltimore. McNulty gets back in his car and says to his passenger: "Let's go home". They drive off while the shot remains on Interstate-95 overlooking Baltimore.
Production
Title reference
-30- is a journalistic term that has been used to signify the end of a story.[4]
Epigraph
...the life of kings.
This is seen in the lobby of the Baltimore Sun, as an excerpt from a longer Mencken quote displayed on the wall when Alma talks with Gus after she has been demoted to the Carroll County bureau. The full quote reads "...as I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings."
Music
The Blind Boys of Alabama's version of Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole" plays over the episode's closing montage. This version of the song had previously been used as the theme music for the show's first season.
During the scene where McNulty plays Trouble with Beadie Russell's children, the song that can be heard playing in the background is "Rich Woman" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant from their 2007 album Raising Sand.
"
Credits
Starring cast
Although credited,
Guest stars
- Jim True-Frost as Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski
- Peter Gerety as Judge Daniel Phelan
- Amy Ryan as Beatrice "Beadie" Russell
- Paul Ben-Victor as Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos
- Bill Raymond as The Greek
- Delaney Williams as Jay Landsman
- Marlyne Afflack as Nerese Campbell
- Walon
- Ptolemy Slocum as Business Card Homeless Man
- Maria Broom as Marla Daniels
- David Costabile as Thomas Klebanow
- Sam Freed as James Whiting
- Anwan Glover as Slim Charles
- Hassan Johnson as Roland "Wee-Bey" Brice
- Melvin "Cheese" Wagstaff
- Dion Graham as Rupert Bond
- Thomas J. McCarthy as Tim Phelps
- Robert Poletick as Steven Luxenberg
- Michael Willis as Andy Krawczyk
- Donald Neal as Jay Spry
- Kara Quick as Rebecca Corbett
- Brandon Young as Mike Fletcher
- William F. Zorzi as Bill Zorzi
- Al Brown as Stan Valchek
- Ed Norris as Ed Norris
- Michael Salconi as Michael Santangelo
- Brian Anthony Wilson as Vernon Holley
- Megan Anderson as Jen Carcetti
- Benay Berger as Amanda Reese
- Eisa Davis as Rae
- Assistant Principal Marcia Donnelly
- Wendy Grantham as Shardene Innes
- Bobby Brown as Bobby Brown
- Dennis Hill as Detective Christeson
- Doug Olear as Terrance "Fitz" Fitzhugh
- Rick Otto as Kenneth Dozerman
- Gregory L. Williams as Michael Crutchfield
- Thuliso Dingwall as Kenard
- Dave Ettlin as Dave Ettlin
- Edward Green as Spider
- Kwame Patterson as Monk Metcalf
- Stephen Schnetzer as Robert Ruby
- Carl Schoettler as Carl Schoettler
- William Joseph Brookes as Lawrence Butler
- Sho "Swordsman" Brown as Phil Boy
- Norris Davis as Vinson
- Reggie A. Green as Arabber
- Joey Odoms as Corner boy
- Troj. Marquis Strickland as Ricardo "Fat Face Rick" Hendrix
- Connor Aikin as Jack Russell
- Sophia Ayoud as Cary Russell
- Gary D'Addario as Gary DiPasquale
- Clinton "Shorty" Buise as Clinton "Shorty" Buise
- Alan V. Poulson as Developer
- Dionne Audain as Social Worker
- Chris Kies as Petey the drunk
- Stephen Kinigopoulos as Officer
- Jeff Wincott as Johnny Weaver
- Henry Carter as unknown
- Edward C. Lewis as unknown
- George Smith as unknown
Uncredited appearances
- David Simonas Baltimore Sun staff member
- Rebecca Corbett as Baltimore Sun staff member
Reception
Writers
The Baltimore Sun was less than thrilled with the finale. Critic David Zurawik wrote that the finale was just another example of how the final season of the show "lost its heart and its way." Zurawik praised the first four seasons but blasted the finale. "Simon so forces events in the improbable newspaper story line of an invented serial killer that he does serious damage to the credibility of the police drama," he wrote.[6]
Writing in a retrospective for Collider, Jeremy Urquhart praised the finale. "The final sequence of The Wire's final episode finishes things on a particularly notable high, and is likely striking enough to make even the season's detractors feel moved."[7]
References
- ^ "Season 5 crew". HBO. 2007. Retrieved December 12, 2007.
- ^ "HBO Schedule: THE WIRE 60: –30–". HBO. 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
- ^ a b "60th Primetime Emmy Awards". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved March 31, 2009.
- ^ Kogan, Hadass (October 1, 2007). "So Why Not 29? | Why did reporters for years end their stories by writing "-30-"?". American Journalism Review Archives. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ Stanley, Alessandra (March 10, 2008). "So Many Characters, Yet So Little Resolution". The New York Times. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
- ^ Zurawik, David (March 9, 2008). "The Wire finale is a cop out for a once great show". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
- ^ Urquhart, Jeremy (October 16, 2023). "The TV Series Finale That Got Everything Right". Collider.com. Collider. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
External links
- "-30-" Archived August 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine at HBO.com
- "-30-" at IMDb